Dentistry

Abstract

Dental Anomalies in Chinese Children with Cleft Lip and Palate

Hai Ming Wong, Moon Cheung Lai and Nigel Martyn King

Background: The prevalence of dental anomalies in children with cleft lip and palate (CLP) has been said to be higher than in the normal children; however, such findings have not been expressed for different racial groups.
Aim: To determine the prevalence of anomalies in children with CLP and to ascertain if there were any differences between the prevalence figures for CLP and non-CLP children.
Design: This is a retrospective study looking at previously collected clinical records. The sample consisted of 231 pairs of age and gender matched CLP and non-CLP southern Chinese aged between 12 and 16 years. The dental records of the subjects were examined to gather data on anomalies of tooth number, size and shape.
Results: It was found that 57.6% of the CLP children had hypodontia, 10.0% hyperdontia, 8.7% taurodontism, 0.8% a double tooth, 1.30% dens evaginatus, and 42.4% had microdontia in the permanent dentition. The CLP subjects had a statistically higher prevalence of hypodontia (p<0.001), supernumerary (p<0.01) and microdontia (p<0.001) than the non-CLP subjects. More CLP children, were found to have one to three types of anomalies, than the non-CLP children (p<0.001).
Conclusion: This group of Chinese CLP children demonstrated a higher prevalence of dental anomalies than the non-CLP children.